Cement unit in Hooghly

Haldia, Jan. 16: Kumar Mangalam Birla's flagship cement company Ultratech Cement is set to commission a 2-million-tonne plant at Hooghly's Dankuni by the first half of 2014.

The plant, which is expected to come up at an investment of about Rs 500 crore, will be the second unit of the company in the state. It has a 1.8-million-tonne plant in Durgapur.

"Construction work is expected to begin in a month's time and the plant is expected to go into operation within a year after that," Rajeev Mehta, the executive president, business development and strategy cell of Ultratech Cement, said on the sidelines of a seminar at Bengal Leads today.

The company is planning to set up a grinding plant at Dankuni and will source clinkers (limestone and clay nodules) from outside. The plant is expected to consume about 4,000 tonnes of clinkers, 1,400 tonnes of fly ash and 350 tonnes of gypsum daily.

The plant could source clinkers from its units in Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.

The commissioning of the plant in Dankuni is a part of the company's capacity expansion plan.